On filling up

Starting off with giggles in the news this time - this article on shifting currencies came through the feed earlier, and more recently, so did this bit of satire that ties into it. Had to put in a nod to the many instances of 'hilarious' and its variants that have come through the feed as well - may this funny-not-"Spanish" be enough.

(Digression, but I want to address while I'm here the material in the shifting currencies article, about who's shopping for helicopters where, since there's also information on who gets to access the bases where those choppers might end up. Looks like the need for these vehicles at this point outweighs any considerations about their страна of origin. That is - winnowing down some TL;DR in the shopping article - if the страна's not too busy to send them over.)

I meant for the main focus here to be issues surrounding fuel costs. Historically, profiteering has been known to happen in these circumstances (what, like silk shirts and charging quadruple come out of thin air?), so there's more than surrounding chatter that gets me wondering how that applies to prices at the pump; articles regarding taxes mean I'm not the only one.

In addition, there's always the talking point about supply and demand, and so information about imports is useful here. I especially note the bit in this article about blocking something from a market doesn't necessarily prevent a sale to that same market, not when that thing is sold to someone else first. (The concept of "grey trading" isn't new, and came to mind partly because I'm hungry again.)

Also, stars high and low Imagine this burden now foreign to them is a worthy sacrifice to bear; and going by coal usage and the odd social media snippet, I'm not the only one who's made a post on the concept of needing fossil fuels while green tech's developing.

Wrapping up this section with the recollection of a listicle I skimmed through that mentioned something about the view of the majority being what forms reality. It's a notion I counter with astronomy and art: with heliocentrism and geocentrism, the majority's views at the time, educated and otherwise, didn't change any orbits; and despite the qualifications of the people working with and displaying them, artworks were hung counter to the intent of the artists who made them. (Still looking for the black-white-and-blue squares one.)

Going by what I've read, though the stickers (made where?) may not be entirely justified, I see the same institutions pushing the same politicians and the same policies despite optics of headwinds both foreign and domestic, headwinds in which these institutions themselves had a hand; to those optics, I've yet to see a counter, and I'm still oddly relieved to have marked my ballot as I did.

Adding this as a reminder that these issues remain, fratello, and that the people keeping an eye on them are still there.

Ending with this because these works would make more than a good nightlight.